Xbox One will be ‘best experienced’ with IPv6: How do you get IPv6 at home, though?

Share This article

According to Microsoft, if you want to enjoy the best possible Xbox One gaming experience, you should use IPv6. The Xbox One natively supports IPv6, but finding an ISP that will give you an IPv6 connection to the internet is difficult. By using IPv6 on your Xbox One, you should have less latency when playing multiplayer games, any data that you do transmit over the internet should be safer and more private, and in general any connections made by the Xbox One — either to remote servers, or peer-to-peer — should be faster and more responsive.

IPv6 is the successor to IPv4, the address scheme used by every device to connect to the internet (or local network). When you refer to an IP address (192.168.0.101), you are talking about an IPv4 address. The problem with IPv4, though, by virtue of being a 32-bit number, is that it only allows for a total of 4.3 billion addresses — and there are a lot more than 4.3 billion internet-connected devices on Earth. We’ve managed to extend the life of IPv4 through NAT (Network Address Translation), which allows multiple devices to sit behind one public IPv4 address, but it’s ultimately just a stop-gap measure. At the time of publishing, both the European (RIPE) and Asia/Pacific (APNIC) regional internet registries (RIRs) have exhausted their supply of IPv4 addresses. Elsewhere, in the Americas and Africa, there’s a few million addresses remaining that should be exhausted in the next few years.

IPv6, by moving to 128-bit addressing, allows for a grand total of 340 undecillion addresses — that’s 340 followed by 26 zeroes, or more addresses than we’ll probably ever need, even if we manage to populate most of the Milky Way. This means that NAT — which generally slows things down and causes various firewall-, P2P- and connectivity-related issues — can be removed from the equation, instantly (and quite dramatically) improving your internet experience. IPv6 also introduces IPsec, a companion technology that was created for IPv6, backported to IPv4, but which really comes into its own when connected end-to-end via IPv6. Basically, IPsec (IP security) authenticates and encrypts each packet, increasing the privacy and security of your data. IPsec can be implemented in peer-to-peer communications, too (say, between multiple Xbox Ones). For more information on IPv6, check out our full IPv6 explainer.

With the rapid growth of smartphones and other internet-connected devices, ISPs and consumers are finally starting to feel the squeeze from IPv4 address exhaustion — and thus, some 15 years after it was standardized, ISPs are actually starting to switch over to IPv6. With IPv6 routes opening up across the internet, web companies such as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo are turning on IPv6 as well. Still, though, the growth of IPv6 is slow: In October 2012, 1% of Google’s traffic was IPv6; by September 2013, that had risen to 2%.

How to use IPv6 on your Xbox One

If you want to get the best gaming experience on the Xbox One, you’ll need to find an ISP with a complete IPv6 setup in your area — which is sadly still quite difficult. In the US, most of the major ISPs (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable) are rolling out IPv6, but it’s a slow process, and there isn’t much you can do to speed it up; you’re either on their IPv6 network, or not. Canada, too, is dragging its heels.

Outside the US and Canada, there are more options. In the UK, Andrews & Arnold have provided to-the-home IPv6 connections for 11 years. In the Netherlands, hit up XS4All; in Germany, M-net; in France, Free; in Australia, Internode.

In general, especially if you’re in the US, your best bet is probably to check the list of World IPv6 Day participants, which includes links to the relevant IPv6 roll-out/status pages for major ISPs around the world. In some cases, you might be able to poke your ISP to send you a new IPv6-enabled router, if you’re in an area where the ISP’s backbone has been updated to support IPv6.

Finally, we should probably discuss the PS4 compatibility with IPv6. While Microsoft has clearly stated that the Xbox One will support IPv6, and the IPv4-IPv6 bridging technology Teredo [PDF], Sony has remained oddly quiet about the PS4’s IPv6 capabilities. I would be very, very surprised if the PS4 does not support IPv6 — but while Microsoft is fully on board the IPv6 train, it’s possible that IPv6 will be more of an afterthought on the PS4, and thus isn’t being advertised. Even so, though, assuming the PS4 hardware and operating system support for IPv6, you should at least see a reduction in latency by moving to IPv6 on your PS4.

Tagged In

Post a Comment

shane

xbox is clearly the winner here people

Matthew Bryant

You do realize that going forward virtually all devices will have IPv6 or will get updated to have it right? This really isn’t a win for anyone. I have no idea why they’re even talking about it. Yes, IPv6 will need to be used and probably sooner rather than later, but this is hardly groundbreaking. This will quickly be status quo and a simple OS update can easily add this functionality.

davedooter

False.

Matthew Bryant

Thanks for the logical rebuttal. Feel free to supply a reason why I’m false and which part of my comment is false. Otherwise your comment is incredibly useless.

davedooter

You are not smart.

http://www.techmansworld.com/ Michael Hazell

They are Xbox fanboys, clearly.

Damian Hayden

Matthew Bryant, you are no IPv6 expert and you’re posting so much and confusing others with your limited knowledge of the matter.

“Besides NAT type is rarely an issue unless you have a crappy router”
Incorrect. Different routers handle NAT traversal of UDP packets differently. Buying the best router in the world won’t help when your ISP and the other gamers handle UPD hole punching differently. NAT will still exist with IPv6 but will likely become less common with home users.

“IPv6 just lengthens the numerical sequence to 6 sets of 0-255 instead of 4″.
Perfect example of how little you know on this subject.
IPv4 addresses are made of 4 sets of 8 bit values that represent 0-255 each.
IPv6 addresses are made of 8 sets of 16 bit values that represent 0-65536 and are expressed in hexadecimal format.

“IPv6 should not affect latency in the slightest”

Mostly incorrect as this would only apply in a world of single point-to-point connections. As every internet connection goes through a series of hops, IPv6 offers more efficient routing protocols and lower processing overhead. In addition to dynamic multicast groups these can all offer lower latency by improving packet delivery. UDP and TCP might have the same latency but they can offer a world of difference in performance right? Likewise there is more to ‘latency’ then the speed of transmission.

“It doesn’t change performance at all. It can’t. It has nothing to do with how data is sent, it simply changes the identifier for your network on the internet.”

Incorrect on all 3 counts.
Simplified IPv6 headers improve performance by reducing processing on routers. Dynamic multicast groups can also allow more efficient packet delivery to clients reducing server processing and bandwidth.
Although the physical medium may not change, IPv6 can certainly change how data is sent, with multicast being best example for gaming.
IPv6 just changes your network identifier? Really? So you know nothing of the different header packet length or structure, routing protocols, or broadcast and multicast differences?

vladx

Indeed just like davedooter said, IPv4 won’t die when IPv6 will become more widespread, those devices that use it will contonue to use IPv4.

Matthew Bryant

When did I say that IPv4 would disappear just because IPv6 became widespread? Of course it won’t. There’s no reason for it to disappear. Wireless G didn’t even disappear with wireless N even though there are actual benefits of using wireless N over wireless G, the same is not true of IPv6. IPv6 just lengthens the numerical sequence to 6 sets of 0-255 instead of 4. It’s necessary and it will obviously became popular quickly going into the future out of necessity, but IPv4 will obviously still work. In fact the more devices that use IPv6 that replace devices that use IPv4, the less of a problem IP address overreaching will become. That doesn’t change the fact that IPv6 is necessary and it will quickly become a staple on new internet ready devices.

So if you’d like to point out why my statement was wrong, feel free to do so. IPv6 won’t boost performance on the Xbox One. That’s a PR load of crap. It doesn’t change performance at all. It can’t. It has nothing to do with how data is sent, it simply changes the identifier for your network on the internet. This is a useless article, a useless announcement by Microsoft, and it will probably be a given for most electronic devices within a couple years. Besides, it’s software related, not hardware related. Their OS supports IPv6 out of the box? Oh boy…

Jon Bridger

Hate to pick holes but…… 0-255? don’t you mean 0000 – ffff seeing as we will be using hex rather than decimal? Apart from that small oversight I whole heartedly agree. There will be no performance gains, you still have to get to your router traverse your firewall, go via all the routers to get to the other end, traverse that firewall and finally hit the endpoint you are connecting to. All that router/firewall traversal is what causes latency NOT an addressing system

Kreten

I don’t get why did they have to fricking change the format why not just include 6 more zeroes and there you go instead new fricking ip’s will look worse than mac address

Anders Jackson

Because IPv6 isnt IPv4. You can’t make an IPv4 device communicate directly with IPv6. Yes, the terms used are mostly the same, but DHCPv6 can’t work with IPv4 and voce versa. So to clearly see what IP address type is talking about, they selected to change the format.
By the way, as each device has at least three IPv6 addresses, and probably more. And the devices can change IPv6 address automatically, there are not many reasons to manage directly with IPv6 addresses.
So your statement are a non issue.

QwietStorm

Ok.

Mo Lillaney

apple is the winner here.

Okimdone

Sorry, I saw apple and muscle reflex kicked in and i downvoted

thisBlueDude

Hey me too what do you know lol

Manoj Varughese

I did contribute.

Matthew Bryant

Apple, selling you higher priced goods for no good fucking reason since the iPod. What’s funny is that Macintosh became more expensive out of necessity. That necessity no longer exists, but they still overcharge. What’s hilarious is that people actually believe the “It’s higher quality” crap. No, it’s not. You just pay more for that retarded logo and an OS you can install on every PC on the market if you know how.

Goodgrief

Really? why did sony not cater for ipv6? A link to an article or anyone at all that has talked about the ps4 ipv6 capabilities will be nice.

Joseph Lan

If anyone needed proof of the IQ level of the average Xbox fanboy, shane is it. Just look at his comments.

jaimie bisbee

My Uncle John just got an awesome silver Volkswagen CC by working
online… hop over to these guys J­a­m­2­0­.­ℂ­o­m

Manoj Varughese

To me the whole IPv6 thing was selected as a desperate measure to show that the Xbox one is indeed the smarter and better of the two. From current stand-point it has to be left to the benefit of the doubt. This is just like another example after mentioning about those dedicated servers for the FPS multiplayer titles and exclusives. A blast from the past would be to refer to the original XBOX hard-drive doing pretty much nothing for the console, when it was still considered superior over memory cards. So my 2 cents if IPV6 had to do any real favors.

Matthew Bryant

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but IPv6 should not affect latency in the slightest. It’s just a routing system. How fast your data travels to your ISP and then how many leaps it has to make to get to the host is what ultimately affects latency. While I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft pretended that IPv6 is some magical new technology that gives the Xbox One an advantage (like they did with cloud computing), it’s simply not true. There are only certain servers a IPv6 connection can use. Because of this latency is generally higher, not lower, for a IPv6 connection. Not to mention that DNS lookups will obviously take a little longer (though it will probably be too small to be noticeable). In any case, this is a feature that could be added in a firmware update with ease. This isn’t surprising or useful in the least. I have no idea why Microsoft even brought it up other than to prove that their device will still be internet ready in 10 years.

dranzer1

The DNS lookup times have gotten a lot faster since wayyy back then. There there’s other advantages though, like rendering NAT practically obsolete, and allowing pretty much anyone to have a static ip address .

John Pombrio

yeah, IPv6 has a lot of advantages (except for Torrents,heh) but it will not be a magic bullet increasing your internet speed.

Andreas

How does it affect Torrents?

Manoj Varughese

yeah it’s simply based on the core developments in the physical layer.

Shanghaidilly

But you’ll never eliminate NAT until the entire internet infrastructure is using IPv6. While IPv4 exists, NAT will exist.

Matthew Bryant

NAT won’t be eliminated until ISPs give out static IPs for every device on a network. Since ISPs currently sell static IP addresses for a considerable amount of money, don’t hold your breath.

Anders Jackson

With IPv6 you will get a /48 or /56 net to work with. And as you should have a /64 net on LAN it means that you will have 256 or 65535 nets from your ISP. Proper real nets.
Yes, you need lots of nets for your Internet of things in your home, a net for each one in your family for devices they wear, in your cars, mobile devices, guest networks etc etc.
You might get by with a /56 net, if your ISP are cheap.

IPv4 will only be for old equipment, and will be NAT46 to IPv6 for Internet access.

Yes, it will take time, but you can always tunnel over IPv4 today to get IPv6 now.

Matthew Bryant

Static IPs don’t inherently make your connection better. You’ll still be using a router. Sure every device CAN have it’s own static IP, but there’s really no reason for it and it still won’t happen until ISPs provide you with more than one IP (that you’ll undoubtedly have to pay for). It’s not as simple as bringing IPv6 into the picture and seeing everything instantly become better. Besides NAT type is rarely an issue unless you have a crappy router. Buy a Linksys, they work fine even for peer to peer connections.

IPv4 reaps the same benefits from DNS lookups, besides the only time you’ll need to use the DNS server is when you’re browsing the internet. Games rarely ever need DNS servers unless a coder is sloppy enough to use a domain name value instead of the numerical IP address. This article is PR crap. Sure, Xbox One may see minimal benefit years from now, but so will the PS4 and every other device. Support for IPv6 can easily be patched into the OS through a firmware update. This isn’t a hardware feature. It’s just an update to the networking services of their OS.

Frogtree

It’s good they’re supporting IPv6 out of the gate, however, it will
actually perform worse than IPv4 for the next several years. Routing of
traffic between ISPs (peering) is setup separately for IPv4 and IPv6,
and IPv6 has a long way to go before it reaches parity. This means on
average your traffic will take a longer path with IPv6 than the
comparable IPv4 path across the Internet. The result is higher latency
and less throughput. In a few years, you will be correct though.

jim

It kinda does efdect latency atleast when my isp switched and I got a new modem it changed from regularly 32ms to 20 to 15ms idk if that’s just a coincidence though

Okimdone

haha.hahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAha…haha…I call bullshit.

shane

ok xbox is leading edge tech and not some ps3.5 same damn thing with upgraded shit at least xbox is trying to push the envelope got it !!

Comnsence

Push what “envelope”? Dude, if you have no idea of what your saying, just keep quite. Stop being in denial that Xbone lost this gen and listen to simple logics from Matthew Bryant above. One thing that I do have to give Microsoft is that they are trying, but for best result, stick with PC (steam) or PS4.

mathew

Umm how can u say they have lost when next generation consoles haven’t been released? Why is commom sense so hard to find now a days. We can all agree that ms fucked their opening of the Xbox one but this so going to be a 10 year generation.

Manoj Varughese

Microsoft’s console may have lost the PR battle, but the console war is yet to begin. Yeah certain comments are fine but this is unacceptable.

disqus_Exz9rLQQ8L

What a ret@rd.

shane

your an idiot clearly this is not a pc article so take your fan boy azz out of here!!

Matthew Bryant

You obviously have no idea what IPv6 is…. Keep fighting the good fight brother. You don’t have to understand something in order to pretend it’s an advantage for the Xbox One right? Just assume it’s good, eat up the PR nonsense, and move along right?

MadisonHJ

LMAO. Who writes this garbage? MSNBC?

Guest

They parted ways.

Mo Lillaney

who uses consoles anymore?

BoTuLoX

Many peasants can be spotted in the comments even these days.

OldSocialist

And they’re still shovelling the same old…

Singh1699

Bro, I’m just looking forward to getting my 50/10 for 50 a month dsl on. Right now it’s 28/1 cable for the same price, but peak hours are slower.

DSL should be 50 all the tiem, and more reliable. Atleast I know if theres a problem its a walk outside and a replacement phone cable. Cable is a 2 hour wait, then getting the independant carrier to schedule with the big robber then waiting a week.

Jeff Witt

You enjoy your 50/10 that rides on copper while I enjoy my 50/50 or 1gb/1gb if I really want that rides on fiber

RealityCheck2013

It’s SAD the Xbox ONE ‘NEEDS’ extra power off the internet to sound ‘Next-Gen’ LoL:D

Unfortunately not – it turns out that the existing blood and tears will actually be incompatible with the new system at launch (despite Sony stating the contrary for at least two months beforehand)… They will, however, be selling new blood and tears for twice the price, but despite what anyone says about them being just another bunch of greedy corporate scumbags, they’re only in it for the love of gamers….

John Pombrio

This story is totally overblowing a complete non-issue. THERE IS NO INTERNET SPEED DIFFERENCE between IPv4 and IPv6! None. Zero. Zip. It is just an address change is all, nothing to do with your internet speed. Compared to other bottlenecks in the internet, NAT translation is minimal or might not even be measurable. C’mon Sebastian, show us some real numbers on how “BAD” NAT is! Firewall issues are also minimal. When was the last time you had to look at your Windows Firewall to “fix” something? Yes, IPv6 will be nice but so would your ISP stop throttling your internet connection, a HUGE issue in comparison.

MS is just trying to promote IPv6 to help folks bring some pressure on their ISPs. The ISPs need this, considering how long it is taking them to implement it. As it stands, most ISPs are dragging their feet in getting it done. Eventually, they will be dragged into getting IPv6 on their networks but don’t hold your breath.

Frogtree

IPv6 will actually perform worse than IPv4 for the next several years. Routing of
traffic between ISPs (peering) is setup separately for IPv4 and IPv6,
and IPv6 has a long way to go before it reaches parity. This means on
average your traffic will take a longer path with IPv6 than the
comparable IPv4 path across the Internet. The result is higher latency
and less throughput. In a few years, you will be correct though.

Shanghaidilly

You sir are correct. And the biggest problem is routing between IPv4 and IPv6 where it totally nullifies any gain for IPv6. Until the entire infrastructure of the internet is running IPv6, there’s just no advantage outside of new addresses.

pixelstuff

I actually asked my ISP about IPv6 a couple years ago. Their response was they had no plans to implement it because no one was asking for it. (incidentally the same excuse they gave for faster upload speeds above 1Mbps). But anyway, maybe this will help get some of the ISPs moving if throngs of Xbox gamers start asking for it all across the country. Regardless of whether it helps latency enough to matter.

TwinStripeUK

In my experience, a lot of network engineers are actually SCARED of IPv6 because it’s so different from what they’re used to. That’s probably the real reason. Lots of advantages to it though, such as the ‘true’ unique addressing. The whole speed debate is a bit of non-starter though; NAT overhead won’t really register a great deal at the individual level, and there’s hardly any difference with the routing either (as most WAN level equipment has been IPv6 aware for over a decade now). Most people would hardly notice the difference, as it’ll be in milliseconds and when you consider it takes 300-400 just to blink that shows how long the round trip would need to be in order to make a difference (about halfway round the world on a slow broadband connection). Nice to see it included properly though, as anything NOT designed for it in the last 10 years is pretty poorly specced.

Matthew Bryant

What are you talking about? IPv6 changes absolutely nothing. They may have to change ***.***.***.*** to ***.***.***.***.***.*** in a few scripts. Obviously numbers will replace the *s as appropriate, but you really have no idea what you’re talking about. IPv6 changes almost nothing locally. At least not for the forseeable future.

TwinStripeUK

Actually, it changes a lot – public and private (link-local) addressing without NAT, stateless address autoconfiguration (64 bit host ID based on MAC) which pretty much makes DHCP redundant due to the unique nature of the addressing, tunnelled interoperability with IPv4 (which would be a lot less efficient if it also didn’t carry the overhead of fragmentation and checksum like IPv4), more widespread use of multicast (which is still relatively sparse in most IPv4 networks)…
There really is a lot more to it than just ‘changing a few scripts’ (which really indicates how much you yourself know on the subject).

John Pombrio

And the net effect to the user is… not much. It certainly will not affect the capabilities of the XBox one.

Manoj Varughese

And also people ought to know that internet speeds are basically reliant on core developments in the physical layer. No matter what happens in the data link or network.

opinionated

Idk man.. Im not a computer person I dont even understand all this computer talk.. my friend who works at best buy in the geek squad tried to explain it to me one time but I still dont get it. But all I know is that when I took off ipv6 and changed it to ipv4 my ps3 got faster.. when I did a speed test.. every time I put it on ipv6 I cant get any more than 3mbps and when I switch it to ipv4 I get 15mbps.. on the speed test idk how accurate that is but to be it obviously does something

Zachariah

I just checked my service(Comcast Xfinity) & I have IPv6 so I’m good to go, just need my XB1 & I’ll wait for The Order 1886 to pick a PS4

disqus_Exz9rLQQ8L

No, PC “will be ‘best experienced’ with IPv6″. The Xbox is to remind people what computers were like 10 years ago.

http://www.facebook.com/timJ.collins Timothy Collins

Question – (This just occurred to me)… We had IPV4 and then IPV6. What happened to IPV5?

ArchAngel570

It was given away to another internet technology shortly after IPv4. So they skipped 5 and went to 6.

Master Troll

Twc is only doing it for business accounts in certain areas from what I was told over the phone so we will have to wait a while but hopefully get it soon as my docsis 3.0 cable modem is ipv6 ready

John Pombrio

What about your router? Try to figure THAT out is a tough one! I guess if you do not need NAT any more but will it support those huge addresses?

Master Troll

Its a motorola sbg6580 so its a modem and router but it claims to support ipv6

Howdie Doodie Time

True enough but what if you ate the cheese before swallowing the milk or chewing that apple? What then?

Ben

This is a prime example of misinformation. I also hear that if you get an IP address of 169.x.x.x Michael Jackson appears and kills you…

Jonathan Abbey

Thank goodness. I took IPv6 classes back in 1996, and wrote software to manage it back in 1998. For a lot of years it has been very hard to imagine that IPv6 would ever actually happen. I was really worried that the next generation of consoles wouldn’t support IPv6, despite coming out in 2013 with a ten year projected lifespan. I very much hope Sony is every bit as much on the ball with IPv6 as Microsoft. They committed to IPv6 a long time ago at the corporate level, but they never implemented it on PS3, and I kind of doubt they implemented it on VITA. It is very, very late in the day for anyone to be bringing devices without IPv6 support to market.

Aero

IPv6 could knock several milliseconds off the latency, and in online gaming, every millisecond counts. Your average Joe in North America or Europe won’t feel the difference, but online console gamers who live in isolated countries like Australia or South Africa, who depend on international servers/ peers for gaming will greatly appreciate IPv6. I know I do.

Anders Jackson

No one commented on the Teredo crap? That will make IPv6 slow…

Surface

340 followed by 36* zeroes

Guest

Am I dyslexics or did they not even mention in the text how to get ipv6 to your xbox one? (Sorry if im wrong)

As far a performance goes between IPv4 and IPv6, it will still come down to how the protocol itself is implemented on the networking stack within the console itself. Trying to do that could be difficult. However, due to the nature of IPv6’s addressing and security schemes, the need to traverse through a NAT device as IPv6 (as not all NAT devices are created equal) could be eliminated and the potential for the XBox One to be globally connected and communicate directly to one another could prove to be very useful for game developers. Putting in a firewall is much easier and better. Imagine if the XBox One can guarantee some form of direct addressing scheme (IPSec) such that game developers will no longer have to account for the various connectivity issues, that would make things so much easier. IPv6 would allow the XBox One’s to all appear to one another as one global LAN. How badass would that be.

The question now is, what about the ISPs? Google Fiber anyone?

Stoneysilence

So the whole section on how to use IPv6 on your Xbox One doesn’t talk about how to use IPv6 on your Xbox one at all…

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Copyright 1996-2015 Ziff Davis, LLC.PCMag Digital Group All Rights Reserved. ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, LLC. is prohibited.